Catallax

Catallax Skill

Interact with Catallax — a decentralized contract work protocol on Nostr using Lightning/Cashu payments and trusted escrow arbiters.

Protocol Overview

Read references/NIP-3400.md for the full spec. Key concepts:

• Patron: Creates tasks, funds escrow, assigns workers
• Arbiter: Escrow agent who judges work and handles payment
• Free Agent: Applies for tasks, delivers work, gets paid
• Kinds: 33400 (arbiter service), 33401 (task proposal), 3402 (task conclusion)
• Status flow: proposed → funded → in_progress → submitted → concluded

Querying Tasks

Use nak to query kind 33401 events from relays:

# List all task proposals (limit 50)
nak req -k 33401 -l 50 wss://relay.damus.io

# Filter by tag (e.g. tasks tagged "development")
nak req -k 33401 -t development -l 50 wss://relay.damus.io

# Filter by status (open tasks only)
nak req -k 33401 -l 100 wss://relay.damus.io | \
  while read -r event; do
    status=$(echo "$event" | jq -r '.tags[] | select(.[0]=="status") | .[1]')
    if [ "$status" = "proposed" ] || [ "$status" = "funded" ]; then
      echo "$event"
    fi
  done

Parse the content field as JSON to get title, description, requirements. Parse tags for amount, status, categories.

Display Format

When presenting tasks to the user, show:

• Title (from content.title)
• Bounty (from amount tag, in sats — show "?" if missing)
• Status (from status tag)
• Date (from created_at)
• Categories (from t tags)
• Description (from content.description, truncated)
• Funding type (from funding_type tag: "patron" or "crowdfunding")

Querying Arbiters

# List arbiter services
nak req -k 33400 -l 50 wss://relay.damus.io

Parse content for name, about, policy. Parse tags for fee_type, fee_amount, min/max amounts, categories.

Display Format

When presenting arbiters:

• Name (from content.name)
• Fee (fee_type + fee_amount — e.g. "5%" or "1000 sats flat")
• Min/Max (from min_amount/max_amount tags)
• Categories (from t tags)
• About (from content.about)

Creating a Task Proposal

To create a task as a Patron, publish a kind 33401 event:

# Build and publish task proposal
nak event -k 33401 \
  --tag d="<unique-slug>" \
  --tag p="<your-pubkey>" \
  --tag amount="<bounty-in-sats>" \
  --tag t="<category>" \
  --tag status="proposed" \
  --tag funding_type="patron" \
  -c '{"title":"Task Title","description":"Detailed description...","requirements":"What must be delivered"}' \
  --sec "<nsec>" \
  wss://relay.damus.io wss://nos.lol wss://relay.primal.net

Generate the d-tag slug from the title (lowercase, hyphenated, with random suffix for uniqueness).

Important: The content field must be valid JSON with title, description, and optionally requirements and deadline.

Updating Task Status

Since kind 33401 is addressable replaceable, publish a new event with the same d-tag to update. Include all original tags plus changes:

# Update to funded (add zap receipt reference)
nak event -k 33401 \
  --tag d="<same-d-tag>" \
  --tag status="funded" \
  --tag e="<zap-receipt-event-id>" \
  # ... all other original tags ...
  --sec "<nsec>" \
  wss://relay.damus.io

Submitting Work (as Free Agent)

Work delivery is coordinated out-of-band per the protocol. However, agents may use kind 951 (work delivery) as a convention:

nak event -k 951 \
  --tag e="<task-event-id>" \
  --tag p="<patron-pubkey>" \
  -c '{"delivery":"Description of completed work","evidence":"Link or proof"}' \
  --sec "<nsec>" \
  wss://relay.damus.io

Task Conclusion (Arbiter only)

nak event -k 3402 \
  --tag e="<payout-zap-receipt-id>" \
  --tag e="<task-event-id>" \
  --tag p="<patron-pubkey>" \
  --tag p="<arbiter-pubkey>" \
  --tag p="<worker-pubkey>" \
  --tag resolution="successful" \
  --tag a="33401:<patron-pubkey>:<task-d-tag>" \
  -c '{"resolution_details":"Work met all requirements"}' \
  --sec "<nsec>" \
  wss://relay.damus.io

Common Queries

Reference Client

For visual browsing: https://catallax-reference-client.netlify.app/catallax

Key Relays

Query multiple relays for best coverage:

• wss://relay.damus.io
• wss://nos.lol
• wss://relay.primal.net

Note: Some relays may not return results for nak req -k 33401 due to kind filtering. If nak returns empty results, fall back to a WebSocket script approach — open a WebSocket connection, send a REQ with {"kinds":[33401],"limit":50}, and collect EVENT responses until EOSE.

Edge Cases

• Missing amount tag: Some tasks use crowdfunding (funding_type=crowdfunding) with a NIP-75 goal tag instead of a fixed amount. Display bounty as "crowdfunded" in this case.
• Content format: Content should be JSON but some early tasks used plain text. Try JSON.parse first, fall back to treating content as description.
• Stale tasks: Tasks with status=proposed older than 30 days may be abandoned. Note age when displaying.
• Multiple relays: Always publish to 3+ relays for discoverability. Query from multiple relays and deduplicate by event id.